Any tricks with using Palm Oil?

[Mezza]

Hi all,

I have a new pot of palm oil sitting in my cupboard, taunting me and wanting to come out and play.

I haven't used palm oil in any of my recipes yet and wanted to know from some more experienced soapers, if there were any tricks to adding it to recipes. Is it palm oil that has to be all melted down before using some of it,or was it another solid oil I was thinking of? I use a standard "bastile" recipe pinched from Soaping 101 that works well for me (25% CO, 67% OO, 8% Castor) and was going to swap in 5% palm and reduce the OO component.

All comments gratefully received

 

[biarine]

I am not an expert I am just a newbie but I have recipe using Palm oil, I use HP, I called it Marula soap:

CO - 20%, Lard - 20%, Cottonseed - 20%, Palm oil - 15%, Baobab -10%, Castor - 10% and Shea butter - 5% and I superfat it with marula oil - 2% I put it after it cook. My friends keep asking another soap and they likes it and I scented it with green apple.Hope you give this a try.

 

[lsg]

Palm should be melted down and stirred well before using. If you have a large container of palm, melt it all down and stir well and then divide the oil into smaller portions for later use.

 

[Saponista]

What happens if you don't melt it down first?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Palm oil is made up of different acids and they don't all have the same melting point - so parts of the tub can be full of one type of acid and not the other. By melting it all and portioning it out, you get the full mix in all the portions

 

[lsg]

If you don't melt it down and mix well, your soap might have stearic spots or streaks.

 

[KristaY]

As Isg said, you have to melt and stir the whole thing to avoid the stearic spots. I'm not sure you're going to notice a huge difference by using only 5% PO. You may want to consider:

45% OO
25% PO
25% CO
5% Castor

My current favorite recipe is:

35% OO
25% PO
20% CO
15% Avocado oil
5% Shea butter

I'm not a huge fan of castor so don't use it often. The bubbles are great but personally I don't like the sticky-ness I feel, even at 5%. I know I'm the oddball here as so many people love it, lol. I prefer 1.5% SL.

Good luck with your palm soap!

 

[Mezza]

Thank you all - very helpful ;-)